A woman flying from Chicago to Marquette, Michigan was left baffled this week, after being mistaken for a baby.
Patricia, 101, was boarding the flight with her daughter, Kris, when she was confronted by the cabin crew.
Bizarrely, they had expected her to be aged one, due to an error with American Airlines’ booking system.
Patricia, who did not want her surname shared, was born in 1922, rather than 2022 – something the computer system could not seem to accept.
Speaking to the BBC, who witnessed the mix-up, she said: ‘It was funny that they thought I was only a little child and I’m an old lady!’
A woman flying from Chicago to Marquette, Michigan was left baffled this week, after being mistaken for a baby. Patricia, 101, was boarding the flight with her daughter, Kris, when she was confronted by the cabin crew
The strange glitch occurred after Kris purchased two adult tickets for the flight via American Airlines’ website.
‘My daughter made the reservation online for the ticket and the computer at the airport thought my birth date was 2022 and not 1922,’ Patricia told the BBC.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that the issue has affected the former nurse.
‘The same thing happened last year and they were also expecting a child and not me,’ she added.
On both occassions, Patricia says that the airline staff were kind and helpful, but admitted that the glitch has proved problematic in the past.
During one trip, airport staff were expecting a baby, and so did not have a wheelchair ready for her in the terminal.
A fix would also be helpful for her daughter, Patricia says.
‘I would like them to fix the computer as my poor daughter had to carry all our luggage and apparel almost a mile from one gate to the other,’ she added.
MailOnline has contacted American Airlines for comment.
The strange glitch occurred after Kris purchased two adult tickets for the flight via American Airlines’ website (stock image)
This isn’t the first time that a computer glitch has led to confusion around someone’s age.
Back in 2012, a 99-year-old woman born in 1912 was denied a credit card after a glitch thought her birth date hadn’t happened yet.
Madeline Otto was told by an embarrassed cashier that she was too old to get a credit card after the computer rejected her application.
The computer automatically assumed the ’12’ was 2012 and, obviously, refused her credit as she was technically not yet born.
With an estimated 722,000 centenarians around the world, these computer glitches are worth fixing fast!
